Somebody should tell her—Remnick didn’t—that pretty much everyone in the nation who wasn’t in a coma during the Biden administration before the election—that’s almost four years of painful observation—had figured this out the second Biden announced his candidacy. Those few dense souls who hadn’t already recognized the obvious certainly saw the writing on the metaphorical wall when Joe descended into Authentic Frontier Gibberish during his debate with Donald Trump. And surely when the result of Joe’s egocentric and demented botch resulted in his party anointing the hopeless and hapless Kamala Harris, absolutely everyone with the possible exception of Harris herself knew that Joe had engineered a disaster, though not without the incompetence of many, many others paving the way.
Hillary also proclaimed that if Biden had decided to “pass the torch” and the Democratic Party had held a competitive Presidential primary, “whoever emerged from that contest — whether it was the Vice President, or a governor, or a senator or anybody else — would have beaten Donald Trump.”
Some recent studies suggest that Trump Derangement is taking on the characteristics of mental illness. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who isn’t suffering from it, and this latest example should go into the research files.
Anne Schedeen was one of those moderately successful, fungible and forgettable actresses who can most charitably described as a “working professional.” When a sitcom role that has you starring as a puppet’s protector—Alf was an illegal alien from outer space who had crash-landed in a family’s garage, and Schedeen played the mother in the family that helped keep him secret from government authorities—-is your most famous credit, you will not get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But upon her death at 77, Schedeen’s family thought it appropriate to virtue-signal to their fellow Trump Haters by issuing this tribute:
“She leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of creative energy, whip smart humor, delight in her family, adoration for little dogs, burning hatred for Trump, passion for second-hand thrifting, and love for a good story. We are bereft without her. We loved her so so much, as did all who met her.”
That, my friends, is insane. Variety, meanwhile, the so-called bible of the entertainment trade, didn’t have to put that feature in the statement in its headline, but did. None of the other outlets reporting the death thought that weird section was any more worthy of highlighting than Anne’s “passion for second-hand thrifting,” because it isn’t. Variety’s typical reader, however, is just as insane as Anne Schedeen.
I cannot imagine any previous President being used in this manner. Being noted for hatred of anything as a life highlight is hardly impressive; to me, that headline demonstrates what a wan career Schedeen had. No, she was never in a successful movie, never had a big role, never was nominated for an Oscar or Emmy, BUT she did hate the President of the United States, so there’s that.
The family might as well have pointed out that she won an award in the fourth grade for an essay about her goldfish. Having one’s family hurl your hatred at a President from beyond the grave is hardly as impressive as Ahab screaming at Moby Dick right before the Whaie Whale drags him down, “Thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee!” Ahab was nuts, but at least he wasn’t mad at Moby for mean tweets and enforcing immigration laws.
The family and Variety using the death of a minor actress to spit at the President, however, is a sad, foolish madness.
I haven’t written much lately about my miserable existence since my wife of 43 years, Grace Elizabeth Bowen Marshall (who secretly commented here under the screen name “E2”) turned up dead Leap Year morning with no warning. Because I am at heart incompetent at anything other than the things that interest me and I am natively really good at, I am still struggling mightily with the wreckage of my life, home and business in the wake of her demise.
Just yesterday, I discovered an important task regarding legal obligations that I had completely forgotten about because it was in the category of “things Grace does so Jack can concentrate on other stuff.” I discovered it because a friend who is a talented operations whiz has been forcing me to go through files, papers, and accumulated memorabilia, especially in my office, something that I literally would never do without someone a) forcing me and b) telling me how to do it. This has been one of the most painful experiences of my life, because I don’t get enjoyment from nostalgia, only sadness, anger (at myself, mostly) and regrets.
The nasty surprises, especially from the financial side, have been arriving daily. (Sondheim’s “And Another Hundred People Just Got Off Of the Train” comes to mind). That important task I have completely whiffed on is typical of many: this was something Grace and I agreed would be her responsibility, and I happily left it in her usually capable hands for more than thirty years—never thought about it, in fact. Well, because of age, an illness that was worse than I knew and possibly other issues, she had just stopped taking care of this rather important matter for quite a while. Catching up now is going to be difficult, time consuming and expensive. I should have addressed this shortly after she died, but I was not exactly thinking clearly, and I didn’t know what I didn’t know, as Don Rumsfeld would say.
U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia had a habit of having noisy sex with a police commander in her chambers during office hours. This resulted in a “chambers workplace that was extremely uncomfortable and troubling for clerks,” a judicial panel concluded.
Gee, ya think?
Ross was nominated to the bench in the Northern District of Georgia in 2014 by President Obama. Of course she was. She’s a Democrat, she’s black, she’s arrogant, and she’s unqualified to be a judge. A special committee released damning findings of misconduct in a report two weeks ago. Ross was found to have lied about having sexual intercourse in her chambers—judges aren’t supposed to lie either—but inexplicably, the Eleventh Circuit and Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability decided sufficient punishment was to bar Ross from serving as a chief judge and require her to write apology letters to her clerks. Other than that, she only received a private reprimand. The disciplinary report signaled a whitewash by stating, “Although the special committee is deeply troubled by the conduct in which the judge engaged, the subject judge has demonstrated a strong propensity for rehabilitation and continued diligent service to the judiciary.” She lied to investigators! She was screwing around during work hours. That’s “diligent service to the judiciary”?
For a long time, I have been sick of writing about Anti-Trump bias, anti-Trump hate, Trump Derangement and “Get Trump” indoctrination and propaganda the Axis media, I really have. After all, it has been more than a decade since the Post 2016 Election Ethics Train Wreck first jumped the rails. But these awful, unethical fanatic unethical people keep getting worse, lying, and saying increasingly crazy things. Among the worst of the worst, ex-CNN hack Jim Acosta, who CNN elevated to White House Correspondent during Trump’s first term, compared the court ordered erasure of the President’s name from the Kennedy Center to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He really did. These people don’t even realize how insane they sound to normal people. Wrote one wag on “X”: “I missed the time when people were SHOT DEAD trying to get into the Kennedy Center for 40 years.”
The Trump Outrage Du Jour yesterday was the Flag Day UFC cage match on the White House lawn. On PBS—BOY am I glad not a penny of my taxes go to that propaganda machine!—erudite professional intellectual David Brooks provided Exhibit A of the class snobbery that has always been the root of so much Trump hostility. Asked about the event, Brooks huffed,
“Well, I first thought of, like, who are the artists John F. Kennedy brought to the White House? It was like W.H. Auden, Robert Frost, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein. And now we have got cage fighting. Don’t anybody say America’s in cultural decline!”
Got it. Because Brooks doesn’t enjoy the UFC, the White House hosting a popular sports event means America is in decline. I don’t care for either, but if I had an Uzi at my head and was forced to pick one, I’d take a UFC cage match over one of President Obama’s hip-hop artists he hosted when he was President. Funny, Brooks didn’t mention JFK’s preference for Robbins and Bernstein. Let’s see: Barack and Michelle feted Kendrick Lamar, Janelle Monáe: Common, Queen Latifah, Big Sean, and Chance the Rapper, among others.
You know who would have lovedthe cage match? Teddy Roosevelt. He was the first President I thought of when Trump’s spectacular was announced. Young Teddy was a boxer and a lieftime fan of “manly arts.” His most famous speech is titled “The Man in the Arena,” which I wrote about here.
Progressives don’t much care for Teddy, one of Trump’s favorite Presidents (and mine). They keep waxing poetic about Kennedy, who has a large mausoleum that holds cultural events for the rich glitterati of D. C. memorializing his largely negligible Presidency. Kennedy was also maintaining sexual affairs with the help of the Secret Service as he and Jackie posed as the ideal couple, but he pretended to be admirable well. And he went to Harvard.
Ann Althouse reports that, contrary to how the UFC event was reported as Trump celebrating himself (Flag Day is his birthday) didn’t have any birthday celebration vibe at all:
“The event was called UFC Freedom 250, and, true to that name, it turned out to be about the UFC and the United States of America. Three days before his birthday, Trump had said — quoted at USA Today — “You don’t have to wish me happy birthday because I’m not happy about that birthday that I’m having. That’s a number that I never thought really too much about. It’s not a number I like, but I’m here, nevertheless.” And at that huge event on the White House lawn on the evening of his birthday, last night, I don’t think there was even a passing mention of his birthday.”
Fact Don’t Matter, however. All that matters is to denigrate President Trump for anything and everything. What kind of nation has a news media that devotes itself to projecting hate on its elected leader? Answer: a very, very sick and confused one. Here is the current headline at Salon, the virulently leftist site:
JUST IN: 21-year-old dies after workers forget to attach safety rope and push her off 40-meter bridge in São Paulo’s Limeira, Brazil pic.twitter.com/ceqniPJkUs
Traditionally, the tale of the plug of tobacco has been law students’ favorite anecdote explaining the term “res ipsa loquitur,” or “the thing speaks for itself.” I have reprinted the story or a link many times, but not yet in 2026, so here you are…
“It seems that appellant [Mr. Pillars] consumed one plug of his purchase, which measured up to representations, that it was tobacco unmixed with human flesh, but when appellant tackled the second plug it made him sick, but, not suspecting the tobacco, he tried another chew, and still another, until he bit into some foreign substance, which crumbled like dry bread, and caused him to foam at the mouth, while he was getting “sicker and sicker.” Finally, his teeth struck something hard; he could not bite through it. After an examination he discovered a human toe, with flesh and nail intact. We refrain from detailing the further harrowing and nauseating details. The appellant consulted a physician, who testified that appellant exhibited all of the characteristic symptoms of ptomaine poison. The physician examined the toe and identified it as a human toe in a state of putrefaction, and said, in effect, that his condition was caused by the poison generated by the rotten toe.[emphasis added]…Generally speaking, the rule is that the manufacturer is not liable to the ultimate consumer for damages resulting from the defects and impurities of the manufactured article…[but the Court can] “imagine no reason why, with ordinary care human toes could not be left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found in chewing tobacco, it seems to us that somebody has been very careless.” Agreed. The case is Pillars v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. et al., 78 So. 365 (Ms. 1918).
Similarly, 21-year-old woman Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas is dead because the idiot staff at a bungee-jumping event threw her from a bridge but forgot to attach the cord, leading to the poor woman plunging about 130 feet into a ravine. Maria was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident occurred on the “Skeleton Bridge” in Limeira, in the state of São Paulo.
Six people have been taken into custody. Good.
You know, hiring the equivalents of Moe, Larry and Curly to supervise bungee jumping is even more irresponsible than letting the Three Stooges be plumbers, carpenters or surgeons, which were among the set-ups for many of their slapstick film misadventures. Neither their employers nor the negligent homicide perps themselves can fall back on any rationalizations on the list and get away with it. #19. The Perfection Diversion, or “Nobody’s Perfect!” and “Everybody makes mistakes!” or #20. The “Just one mistake!” Fantasy are probably their best shots, but the problem is that literally nobody does this, ever, unless they are menaces to society who need to be locked away for the greater good. Tossing a trusting thrill-seeker off a cliff and neglecting to fasten the cord expected to safe her life is signature significance for a reckless moron. I guess #20A, “Everyone Deserves a Second Chance,” is also worth a try, but I would require such a bungee jumping establishment to prominently display a sign that says:
“Warning! Occasionally our staff neglects to attach the cord, which will result in a jumper having their brains splattered all over the ravine floor.”
I hate blaming victims, but I feel compelled to add that those of us who deliberately engage in activities that have no societal utility whatsoever and that innately involve the risk of death or serious bodily injury are limited in the amount of sympathy they can expect from me when their metaphorical tossing of the dice comes up snake-eyes. There are several posts on EA about the topic, as with people who pay absurd amount of money to climb Mount Everest or who go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Those who feel something as pointless as bungee jumping will enrich their lives and signify a purpose to an otherwise empty existence have their priorities seriously out of order. They don’t deserve to die, but they do deserve to have St. Peter say, when they knock on the Pearly Gate, “You died how? What were you thinking?”
The New York Knicks finally won an NBA Championship after over half a century, bringing to a happy end one of the longest current fan base frustrations in professional sports, but also a series of ethics messes arising out of Madison Square Garden.
There were some post-victory ethics botches outside of the Garden last night. I don’t understand why winning a sports contest is provocation for a riot. I get the drunken fool effect, but even so: there were no riots in Boston when the Red Sox broke their 86 year-long World Series blight, “The Curse of the Bambino.” Gee, I wonder how many of those Knicks fans will be sent to jail for long periods on the theory that they threatened an “insurrection.” After all, President Trump made it clear that he was rooting for the Knicks. Wait, that’s it! The rioting was Trump’s fault!
I wrote last night’s post about the socialist hacks attacking one of the U.S.’s most productive and innovative people for being too successful at what he does—as contrasted with his envious critics—based on old information, as in “what I had accumulated in my notes during the day while trying to do my far easier and less productive job. (In fact, it’s ridiculous how little being an ethicist accomplishes, if it accomplishes anything at all.) Here are some related items I would have included if I had taken a bit more time on that post….
1. In addition to being assholes, the Musk-haters don’t know what they are talking about.
A frequent and erudite “X”-pundit whose handle is “Cynical Publius” wrote:
“Elon Musk is a trillionaire.”
“As a securities law attorney, please allow me to explain how anyone who says this is basically lying to you:
The Securities and Exchange Commission has a myriad of laws that prevent founders and other large stockholders of publicly traded companies from dumping their shares. There are substantial holding period requirements, volume of sales limitations and public reporting obligations for stock sales. Basically, Elon holds largely illiquid shares, he is a “trillionaire” on paper only, and the best analogy is when people peg your net worth based on your home’s market price. That’s not money in your pocket, that’s the house you live in.
All that money raised in the IPO? That’s not going into Elon’s pocket like the lying socialist idiots want you to believe. It’s a capital influx that will be used to make more rockets and get more payloads into orbit. It’s a CAPITAL investment—that money is like a business loan, it’s not your money to keep, it’s your money to grow the business.
If it WERE legal for Elon to dump his shares, the share price would crash basically instantly and the company could very well fail.
If you bought SpaceX shares in the IPO, congrats. You just bought a lottery ticket, just like Elon. May the odds ever be in your favor.
So the next time someone screeches about how unfair it is that Elon Musk creates wealth that benefits all of humanity, throw the truth back in their faces.”
At this point, the statement above must be ruled not an opinion, but a fact. As a fact, it is another indictment against the political forces—“the resistance,” Democrats, the Left’s captive media, its politicized and corrupted justice system, and furious Republicans who resent the overthrow of their weak Bushy establishment—-that have plotted to destroy Donald Trump from the moment he upset Hillary Clinton’s dream of being the first female President.
The New York Times, hardly a neutral bystander in the Left’s unyielding effort to destroy an elected President by any means necessary, recently published a compendium of what their crack reporters have learned about Epstein, who has been dead for seven years. Sixteen years ago, in 2008, he was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution, and thanks to a “Dream Team” of high-priced defense lawyers and incompetent prosecutors, was allowed to accept a sweetheart plea deal. Epstein got himself indicted again in 2019 for sex trafficking minors but died in custody awaiting his trial, almost certainly by suicide. It is inconceivable that this single rich sociopath would still be in the news today or even remembered by most Americans if there was not an ongoing effort to use him to take down the President of the United States.
“More than 60 Times journalists have delved into the life of the sexual predator whose secrets spurred an international reckoning over money, power and complicity,” the Times announced in “The Big Questions About Jeffrey Epstein: What The Times Has Learned.” [Gift Link] “Oh!” I thought. “At least I know the Times will move heaven and earth to represent the matter in the most damning way possible regarding Donald Trump. Okay, let’s see it. Give us all the innuendo, the presumed Bad Orange Man criminal perversion sand guilt by association. What have you got, Times Trump Hit Squad? Lay it on me.”
Here is what they have under the “big question” “What were his relationships with Trump and Clinton?” First I should note that combining Trump with Clinton is a cheat and a guilt by association tactic all by itself. They are not equivalent cases. Clinton was involved with Epstein while Bubba was living in the White House and fooling around with a young female intern there. There is substantial circumstantial evidence raising legitimate questions about Clinton’s possible involvement in Epstein’s criminal sex procurement activities. The answer to that “big question” regarding Donald Trump however is, I conclude, zzzzzzzzzzzip.
The Times writes,
“Mr. Epstein was friends with Mr. Trump long before he became president, and he developed a relationship with Mr. Clinton during his time in the White House. Those relationships involved bonding with Trump over their pursuit of young women. The two men became good friends in the late 1980s, hanging out together at casinos, Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and other venues. A note and sexually suggestive drawing containing what appeared to be Mr. Trump’s signature was included in a 2003 book for Mr. Epstein’s birthday. Mr. Trump has denied writing the note. Some of Mr. Epstein’s victims, including [Epstein accuser] Giuffre, were recruited by Ms. Maxwell from Mr. Trump’s Florida club and residence, where Ms. Giuffre worked as a spa attendant. Mr. Trump said last year that he cut ties with Mr. Epstein in the early 2000s because he “stole” his female employees, although the relationship also deteriorated when the men fought over a piece of Florida real estate.”
Wait…that’s it? Based on that, Democrats, Graham Platner, Marjorie Taylor Greene and my Trump Deranged Facebook friends call the President of the United States a pedophile, allege a cover-up, and claim that everything Trump does, eventhe war on Iran, is an effort to “distract from the Epstein scandal”? What scandal? Two billionaires knowing each other isn’t a scandal because one of them breaks the law. Hanging out in casinos isn’t illegal or unethical. Rich guys pursuing young women isn’t a crime; heck, it is inevitable. I don’t know why Trump bothers to deny a doodle included in a birthday book: it proves nothing. And that’s all! That’s all the New York Times has after it has sent 60 reporters to get dirt on the President and seven years of searching.
And she was supposedly a rising star of the Democratic Party. Well, she’s better than Graham Platner…
Crockett, who lost her attempt to run for the U.S. Senate and now is a lame duck in the House, was in fine form this week. The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the evidence that the Southern Poverty Law Center was paying the “hate groups” it railed against. One of the witnesses called by the Republicans on the committee was Dr. Alveda King. Her father is Alfred Daniel King, the younger brother of Martin Luther King Jr., and she has broken ranks to be a GOP supporter and an advocate for President Trump.
After King’s statement, Crockett began shouting about how how “white men” had invited Alveda to the hearing and that those white men from the GOP wanted to “tell people of color who is fighting for who. People of color do not feel comfortable or welcomed within your party.”
“That’s why you have to parade someone who has the name ‘Dr. King’ attached to them, so that people can be confused,” she continued. “Because I have been reading the comments online, and people are like, ‘Who is this Dr. King’ because you want them to believe that she somehow espouses who Dr. King was.” Crockett didn’t give this Dr. King an opportunity to respond, but the next speaker, Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.), allowed her to do so.
“Congresswoman, I am a bit emotional,” King began. “I’m going to watch what I say, but it seems as though you have suggested that I am a bastard to the King family legacy. I am legitimately the daughter of the Rev. Alfred Daniel Williams King and Dr. Naomi Ruth Barber King. We are a family who loves God. And I love you. God bless you.”
She was just getting warmed up, though. Later that day, after the Karmelo Anthony guilty verdict was announced, the loud-mouth Congresswoman went on her “Clock It With Crockett”podcast and wildly distorted the facts of the case. She argued that the victim Austin Metcalf’s family couldn’t understand the pain black women have to endure daily. Crockett said that was made clear to her again while talking about the case to a friend who is a black mother. “Black women — especially black women who have black male children — live in fear and agony every single day,” Crockett said. “A fear and agony that I promise you, the Metcalfs probably never spent a day living that way.”
How ironic that their unarmed son was the one who was murdered, not the worried black mother’s son who stabbed him in the heart.
Crockett then expressed the revolutionary idea that Americans need to have “real conversations about race in this country,” as if such conversations aren’t usually hijacked by race-hustlers like Jasmine Crockett, making them divisive and useless.
Crockett, ignoring the evidence at trial, insisted that the stabbing was self-defense. “If a 300-pound man is beating me, like on top of me and beating me down, I’m not limited to fists,” Crockett said. She must have been thinking of Mike Brown. “Cuz I’m telling you right now, if you were twice my weight and got way more strength than me and you got me pinned down, I don’t believe I’m going to survive,” Crockett ranted. It was reported that Metcalf was 6’0, 200 pounds, and Anthony is 5’11 and 162 pounds. The latter was never “pinned down” nor was he in danger of being pinned down. Witnesses said that Anthony dared Metcalf to touch him, and stabbed him to death when he did.
Jasmine: “And when you look at like George Floyd, like George Floyd died, and they never took out a quote-unquote weapon. So this idea you can’t die is wild, right?” Wait, was Metcalf kneeling on Anthony’s neck? What was she talking about?
Then Crockett claimed the murder weapon (it was a knife with a five-inch blade) was too small.
“Well, I would have argued the size of it alone, you wouldn’t even think it’s a deadly weapon,” she reasoned. By definition, if the knife penetrated Metcalf’s heart and killed the kid, it’s a deadly weapon.
Jasmine then said that Metcalf confronted Anthony because “this is the culture that is being instigated,” where white people are “gettin’ real bold with us right now.”
I guess the solution is to kill more white people when they get too bold.
Ethics Alarms 